shut out

I don't know how this happened. I've become locked out of my blog. I changed the title a bit and now I cannot find how to open the blog again to make some changes. this tools part is the only entrance and I am trying to widen it. Ric.

Sunday, 15 June 2014

Myall Creek Massacre

The Myall Creek massacre involved the killing of up to 30 unarmed Indigenous Australians by ten white Europeans and one black African on 10 June 1838 at the Myall Creek near Bingara in northern New South Wales. After two trials, seven of the 11 colonists involved in the killings were found guilty of murder and hanged.

Massacre

A group of eleven stockmen, consisting of assigned convicts and former convicts, ten of them men of European extraction and one African (John Johnstone), led by a squatter, John Fleming fromMungie Bundie Run near Moree, arrived at Henry Dangar’s Myall Creek station on 10 June 1838. They rode up to the station huts beside which were camped a group of approximately thirty-five Aboriginal people. They were part of the Wirrayaraay (alternative spelling: Weraerai) group who belonged to the Kamilaroi people. They had been camped at the station for a few weeks after being invited by one of the convict stockmen, Charles Kilmeister (or Kilminister), to come to their station for their safety and protection from the gangs of marauding stockmen who were roaming the district slaughtering any Aboriginal people they could find. These Aboriginal people had previously been camped peacefully at McIntyre’s station for a few months. They were therefore well known to the whites. Most of them had been given European names such as Daddy, King Sandy, Joey, Martha and Charley. Some of the children spoke a certain amount of English. When the stockmen rode into their camp they fled into the convict’s hut pleading for protection.

When asked by the station hut keeper, George Anderson, what they were going to do with the Aboriginal people, John Russell said they were going to “take them over the back of the range and frighten them.” The stockmen then entered the hut, tied them to a long tether rope and led them away. They took them to a gully on the side of the ridge about 800 metres to the west of the station huts. There they slaughtered them all except for one woman who they kept with them for the next couple of days. The approximately 28 people they murdered were largely women, children and old men. Ten younger men were away on a neighbouring station cutting bark. Most of the people were slaughtered with swords as George Anderson, who refused to join the massacre, clearly heard there were just two shots. Unlike Anderson, Charles Kilmeister joined the slaughter.

Testimony was later given at trial that the children had been beheaded while the men and women were forced to run as far as they could between the stockyard fence and a line of sword-wielding stockmen who hacked at them as they passed. After the massacre, Fleming and his gang rode off looking to kill the remainder of the group, who they knew had gone to the neighbouring station. They failed to find the other Aboriginal people as they had returned to Myall that night and left after being warned the killers would be returning. On the party’s return to Myall two days later, they dismembered and burnt the bodies before resuming the search for the remaining people. The ten people had gone to MacIntyre’s station near Inverell, 40 kilometres to the east, where between 30 and 40 Aboriginal people were reportedly murdered with their bodies being cast onto a large fire. Many suspect this massacre was also committed by the same stockmen. After several days of heavy drinking the party dispersed.

When the manager of the station, William Hobbs, returned several days later and discovered the bodies, counting up to twenty eight of them (as they were beheaded and dismembered he had difficulty determining the exact number) he decided to report the incident but Kilmeister initially talked him out of it. Hobbs discussed it with a neighbouring station overseer, Thomas Foster, who told squatter Frederick Foot who rode to Sydney to report it to the new Governor, George Gipps. Supported by the Attorney General, John Plunkett, Gipps ordered Police Magistrate Edward Denny Day at Muswellbrook to investigate the massacre.

Day carried out a thorough investigation despite the bodies having been removed from the massacre site where only a few bone fragments remained. He arrested eleven of the twelve perpetrators. The only one to escape was the only free man involved, the leader, John Fleming. Anderson was crucial in identifying the arrested men. He had initially refused to name the men involved but after finding out that the massacre had been planned more than a week earlier to coincide with the absence of Hobbs he agreed to identify the killers to the magistrate.

Trials

Beginning on 15 November 1838, the case was heard before the Chief Justice of New South Wales, James Dowling. The accused were represented by three of the colony’s foremost barristers, Foster, a’Beckett and Windeyer, paid for by an association of landowners and stockmen from the Hunter Valley and Liverpool Plains region including Henry Dangar, the owner of the Myall Creek station. The Black Association, as they called themselves, were led by a local magistrate, who apparently used the influence of his office to gain access to the prisoners in Sydney, where he told them to “stick together and say nothing.” Not one of the eleven accused gave evidence against their co-accused at the trial, something that Gipps attributes to the magistrate’s role.

First trial

The station hutkeeper, George Anderson, the only white witness, was the key witness for the prosecution. He told the court how the twelve men had tied the victims together, and led them away. He also said that Edward Foley, one of the perpetrators, had shown him a sword covered with blood. Anderson’s testimony was supported by William Hobbs and Magistrate Day, who had conducted the police investigation. The defence’s case solely rested on the argument that the bodies could not be identified accurately.

Justice Dowling took care to remind the jury that the law made no distinction between the murder of an Aboriginal person and the murder of a European person. The jury, after deliberating for just twenty minutes, found all eleven men not guilty. One of the jurors was alleged in a letter to the editor of The Australian on 8 December 1838 to have said privately that although he considered the men guilty of murder, he could not convict a white man of killing an Aboriginal person:

“I look on the blacks as a set of monkeys and the sooner they are exterminated from the face of the earth, the better. I knew the men were guilty of murder but I would never see a white man hanged for killing a black.” The letter writer who had reported this outrage went on to say, “I leave you, Sir, and the community to determine on the fitness of this white savage to perform the office of a juryman under any circumstance…”

Second trial

Attorney-General Plunkett however requested the judge to remand the prisoners in custody awaiting further charges from the same incident. Although all eleven were remanded in custody only seven were to face a second trial. The second trial was held on 27 November but only 28 of the 48 called up for jury service turned up, it later came to light that the Black Association had intimidated many into staying away. The trial restarted on 29 November under a different judge. Anderson, who had been the key witness at the first trial, gave an even more lucid account of the massacre at the second trial. He told the court that:

“While Master was away, some men came on a Saturday, about 10; I cannot say how many days after master left; they came on horseback, armed with muskets and swords and pistols; all were armed… the blacks, when they saw the men coming, ran into our hut, and the men then, all of them, got off their horses; I asked what they were going to do with the blacks, and Russel said ‘We are going to take them over the back of the range, to frighten them’.”

Anderson then gave evidence that the Aboriginal people in the hut had cried out to him for assistance. He said two women were left behind at the huts, one “because she was good-looking, they said so,” and that there was a young child who had been left behind, who attempted to follow its mother (who was tied up with the others), before Anderson carried it back to the hut. There were also two other young boys who had escaped by hiding in the creek.

Anderson also gave evidence about the perpetrators’ return and the burning of the bodies.

“I [Anderson] saw smoke in the same direction they went; this was soon after they went with the firesticks… Fleming told Kilmeister to go up by-and-by and put the logs of wood together, and be sure that all [of the remains] was consumed… the girls they left, and the two boys, and the child I sent away with 10 black fellows that went away in the morning… I did not like to keep them, as the men might come back and kill them.”

Anderson said that he wanted to speak the whole truth at the second trial. He also said that he did not seek to be rewarded for testifying, rather he asked “only for protection.” The trial continued until 2 am on 30 November, when the seven men were found guilty. On 5 December they were sentenced to execution by hanging. The sentence was ratified by the Executive Council of New South Wales on 7 December, with Gipps later saying in a report that no mitigating circumstances could be shown for any of the defendants, and it could not be said that any of the men were more or less guilty than the rest. The seven men, Charles Kilmeister, James Oates, Edward Foley, John Russell, John Johnstone, William Hawkins and James Parry, were executed early on the morning of 18 December 1838. The four remaining accused, Blake, Toulouse, Palliser and Lamb, were remanded until the next session to allow time for the main witness against them, an Aboriginal boy named Davey, to be prepared in order to take a Bible oath. According to the missionary, Lancelot Edward Threlkeld, Dangar had arranged for Davey to be put out of the way and he was never seen again. With Davey unable to be located, the four were discharged in February 1839.

Recent research has shown that Europeans had been hanged for the murder of Aboriginal people on at least two occasions prior to Myall Creek. In 1820, two convicts, John Kirby and John Thompson, attempted to escape from the colony but were captured by local Aborigines and returned to Newcastle. A military party accompanied by two constables set out to meet them and Kirby was seen by the party to stab Burragong (alias King Jack) whereupon he was felled by a waddy. Burragong initially appeared to recover, stating that he was murry bujjery (much recovered) and collected his reward of a “suit of clothing”, however, he later complained of illness and died from his wound 10 days after being injured and Kirby and Thompson were both tried for “willful murder”. All the European witnesses testified that “no blow was struck by any native” before Kirby attacked Burragong, Thompson was acquitted while Kirby was found guilty and sentenced to death with his body to be “dissected and anatomized.”

The Myall Creek massacre was the first and only time in Australia’s history that Europeans were executed for the massacre of Australian Aborigines.

Consequences

The case led to significant uproar among sections of the population and the media, sometimes voiced in favour of the perpetrators. For example, an article in the Sydney Morning Herald declared that “the whole gang of black animals are not worth the money the colonists will have to pay for printing the silly court documents on which we have already wasted too much time”.

John Fleming, the leader of the massacre, was never captured, and was allegedly responsible for further massacres throughout the Liverpool Plains and New England regions. His brother, Joseph Fleming, was also linked to massacres in the Maranoa region of south-western Queensland.

John Blake, one of the four men acquitted at the first trial and not subsequently charged, committed suicide by cutting his throat in 1852. His descendants say that they like to think he did so out of a guilty conscience.

Those executed, on 18 December 1838, were: Charles Kilmeister, James Oates, Edward Foley, John Russell, John Johnstone, William Hawkins and James Parry.

Reasons

The Myall Creek massacre was just one of many massacres that took place in that district (the Liverpool Plains) around that time. There were many other massacres that took place right across the colony as it expanded across more and more Aboriginal land. As elsewhere in the colony, the Aborigines at times put up resistance to the invasion of their land by spearing sheep and cattle for food and sometimes attacking the stockmen’s huts and killing the white men. In the Liverpool Plains district there had been some cattle speared and huts attacked and two whites murdered (allegedly by Aborigines). The squatters complained to the acting Governor Snodgrass who sent Major James Nunn and about twenty-two troopers up to the district. Nunn enlisted the assistance of up to twenty-five local stockmen and together they rode around the district rounding up and slaughtering any Aborigines they came across. Nunn’s campaign culminated in the Australia Day Massacre of 1838 at Waterloo Creek. As there are no definitive historical records available it is impossible to accurately determine the exact number of Aborigines who were slaughtered there but estimates range from forty to over one hundred.

When Nunn returned to Sydney, many of the local squatters and stockmen continued the “drive” against the Aborigines. The perpetrators of the Myall Creek massacre were some who continued that relentless slaughter. The Aborigines killed at Myall Creek were not involved in any of the spearing of cattle or the attacks on stockmen’s huts that were occurring elsewhere as they had been living peacefully on McIntyre’s and Wiseman’s stations for many months prior to moving to Myall Creek. They simply got caught up with the colonist’s desires to drive them off their land so they could continue with the expansion of the colony.

In his book, Blood on the Wattle, journalist Bruce Elder says that the successful prosecutions resulted in pacts of silence becoming a common practice to avoid sufficient evidence becoming available for future prosecutions. Another effect, as one contemporary Sydney newspaper reported, was that poisoning Aborigines became more common as “a safer practice”. Many massacres were to go unpunished due to these practices, as what is variously called a ‘conspiracy’ or ‘pact’ or ‘code’ of silence fell over the killings of Aborigines.

Memorial

A memorial to the victims of the massacre was unveiled on 10 June 2000, consisting of a granite rock and plaque overlooking the site of the massacre. A ceremony is held each year on 10 June commemorating the victims. The memorial was vandalised in January 2005, with the words “murder”, “women” and “children” chiselled off, in an attempt to make it unreadable. The location is described as 23 km north east of Bingara at the junction of Bingara-Delungra and Whitlow Roads.

The Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site was included on the Australian National Heritage List 7 June 2008.

Please note: Some internet providers including Internet Explorer and even Firefox seem to delete aspects of my blogs. I have found only one, CHROME to be satisfactory.Please down load CHROME in a couple of minutes (free). thank you (Ric)

Do you know?

Crimes punishable by transportation included recommending that politicians get paid, starting a union, stealing fish from a river or pond, embezzlement, receiving or buying stolen goods, setting fire to underwood, petty theft, or being suspected of supporting Irish terrorism.

The song made famous by the late Slim Dusty, was first written in the original Day Dawn Hotel in Ingham in north Queensland in 1943, by an Irish cane cutter Dan Sheahan, after some American soldiers drank the pub dry the previous night. > >

Australian Outback .

Aus­tral­ia may need an in­fu­sion of ele­phants and oth­er large mam­mals to solve its per­sist­ent ec­o­log­i­cal and wild­fire prob­lems, a sci­ent­ist pro­poses.

Ecol­o­gist Da­vid Bow­man of the Uni­vers­ity of Tas­ma­nia in Aus­tral­ia cites out-of-con­trol fires and bur­geon­ing fe­ral-animal popula­t­ions as quan­daries af­flict­ing the Land Down Un­der. Both could be solved by in­tro­duc­ing large mam­mals, as well as pay­ing ab­o­rig­i­nal hunters to con­trol the fe­ral an­i­mals and re­store the old prac­tice of patch burn­ing, he ar­gues. Patch burn­ing is a form of con­trolled burn­ing in­tend­ed to clean out and re­new bio­lo­gical re­sources.

“I real­ize that there are ma­jor risks as­so­ci­at­ed with what I am propos­ing,” as any tin­ker­ing with the en­vi­ron­ment can lead to un­planned con­se­quenc­es, said Bow­ma­n. “But the usu­al ap­proaches to ma­n­ag­ing these is­sues aren’t work­ing.”

Bow­man de­scribes his idea in this week’s is­sue of the re­search jour­nalNa­ture.

Feb. 7 will mark the three-year an­ni­ver­sa­ry of “Black Sat­ur­day,” when nearly 200 peo­ple died in a mas­sive fire­storm in south­ern Aus­tral­ia. Fires are a con­stant con­cern in the con­ti­nent, said Bow­ma­n, but so are its thriv­ing popula­t­ions of fe­ral pigs, camels, hors­es and cat­tle, among oth­ers.

Bow­man pro­poses to ma­n­age Aus­tral­ia’s trou­bled ec­o­sys­tem by in­tro­duc­ing beasts such as ele­phants, rhi­noc­er­os and even Ko­modo drag­ons. These would help con­sume flam­ma­ble grasses and con­trol fe­ral-animal popula­t­ions, he ar­gues.

The larg­est liv­ing land mam­mal na­tive to Aus­tral­ia is the red kan­ga­roo, which as an adult weighs about as much as an av­er­age ma­n. Larg­er mam­mals used to roam the con­ti­nent—such as a hippo-sized mar­su­pi­al re­lat­ed to the wom­bat and called di­pro­to­don, from the Great Ice Age—but they are no more.

The de­lib­er­ate in­tro­duc­tion by hu­ma­ns of po­pu­lations of over­sized, non-na­tive mam­mals to a new conti­nent would be un­prec­e­dent­ed in modern times. One group, though, has pro­posed in­tro­duc­ing large Af­ri­can mam­mals in­to the Great Plains of the Un­ited States, for some­what diff­erent rea­sons than those moti­vating Bow­man.

Carol Baxter is my distant cousin. She has not directly contributed to this weblog, and has not ever in fact acknowledged its existence, but because of the valuable information I received from reading her website about our family, I am very indebted to her.

Another family website helped me considerably. This was "Our Williams Story" by another distant cousin, Kieran Williams

I am heartened by the many emerging websites about the descendants of William Nash and Maria Haynes.

Then there are the many threads from Monaro Pioneers.

Thank you for all the sources.

I am hoping that when I am no longer able to continue (being nearly 79) that someone else wll pick up the ball and continue my blog.Of course I have included my political views and my non-religious attitudes because they are part of me and readers do not have to accept them, but may actually learn a little from them.

William Nash came to Australia as a Marine with the First Fleet 1788William and Mariah's first child, William, was baptised on Sunday 25th May 1788A wedding was celebrated at St Phillip's, Sydney, on 13 February 1789, between William Nash, a marine, and Maria Haynes, a convict, in the presence of Elizabeth Gratten and Samuel Barnes (Chaplain's clerk)Mariah Haynes is not listed in John Cobley's 'Crimes of the First Fleet Convicts'By 1803 William & Maria had separated, and she took the children with her. Maria later became associated with two other men, Robert Guy and in 1816, with William Neale.

6 Children

1. William Nash born on 25 May 1788, buried on Friday 19th June 1789, a marine's child.2. John Nash baptised 15 Jan 1792 (a family source names him William)3. Mary Nash born 2 March 1793 and baptised 2 April4. William Nash born 27 March 1795 and baptised 4 May5. George Nash born 26 July 17976. Sarah Nash was born 16 Nov 1798

6. Sarah Nash 16 Nov 1798 wed on the 15th January 1814 at St John's, Parramatta, to John Williams (a convict), 13 children

On 25th April 2010 Stephen Hawking, leading academic and cosmologist, told the Sunday Times: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.” He also points out that making contact with aliens could be very risky, stating: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

John Kerswell: A Welsh plasterer transported in 1828 at the age of 20 years to 15 years for stealing. Absconding four times and charged with being drunk three times, granted ToL in 1856 and Conditional Pardon in 1857. However, he received 20 years imprisonment for attempting to stab a policeman. He was released from Port Arthur in 1875.

William Forster: At age 17 years was transported for ten years for stealing a box writing desk. Misdemeanour followed misdemeanour and sentence added to sentence until in 1864 he was sentnenced to life for robbery under arms. The last mention of him is in 1872 when he was sent to the Separate Prison for misconduct.

Alexander Woods: A soldier with the 17th Regiment, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Woods (aged 30) was transported from Canada to Port Arthur for 14 years for desertion.Returned to Hobart with a ToL in 1853 but returned to PA again in 1865 for 15 years for burglary. He was a church attendant in 1869 and was discharged in 1875.

Old houses West End Vancouver B.C.

Read Dallas Darling and other prominent thinkers.

(Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John's Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.worldnews.com. You can read more of Dallas' writings at www.beverlydarling.com and wn.com//dallasdarling.)

Old Harry Williams was asked how was it that the long list of Williams lead by far those of Nash over the last couple of hundred years.

"Well, let's see.Them Nashes they was more posh and they kept the family bible, so we lot had nothing to read at night.There was no T.V. in them days, and we didn't want to waste candles, so we used to all jump in bed together and make more Williams's."

Australia. The first fleet sailed from England in 1787 carrying marine William Nash and his common law wife Maria Haynes. They were the progenitors of an extensive Nash family in Australia. Another early settler was Andrew Nash. He had acquired the Woolpack Inn in Parramatta in 1821 and became well-known for the prowess of his racehorses. A later settler from Wiltshire was James Nash. He discovered gold along the Mary river in Queenland and helped precipitate the second Australian gold rush.

There were also Nash convicts in Australia. Some thrived; Robert Nash, transported on the Albemarle in 1791; John Nash on the Eleanor in 1831; and Michael Nash from Limerick, on the Rodney in 1851.

Neither here nor there.

If a man was on an escalator, but walking back down it and the elevator was located in a revolving restaurant on a large airliner going in a southerly direction and the earth was revolving on its axis and at the same time was travelling in an elliptical path around the sun, which was travelling around the galaxy, which was expanding......how many movements was the man travelling in?

Wild man of North Australia.

I met Michael (Tarzan) Fomenko(shown here at 81 years) son of a Russian Princess when I was 18 and he was twenty. He was a handsome young man. I was in love with his sister Nina Fomenko, who was gracious to me but held my ardour at arms' length. In later years I met her in North Queensland where she and her husband Brian Patrick Donnellan were cutting cane. They had no mattress to sleep on, so I bought them one. Nina was always beautiful. (Ric)

Toonoom FallsSituated in the heart of Royal National Park to the south of Sydney, Toonoum Falls is a pretty, 5 metre high waterfall alongside Sir Bertram Steven Drive not far from the Garie turnoff. The photo shows the falls in flood.Location: Royal National Park.

In the fifties, I lived close to here in a rock shelter once used by Aborigines. I used to swim in this creek a little further down the hill. My family thought I was crazy and I probably was, but life here on the edge of the National Park was idyllic if you could bear the flies, mosquitoes, snakes and centipedes.. (Ric)

HMSSirius, the main Naval ship with the First Fleet, under Captain John Hunter RN.Had been built in 1780 as Berwick for the East Indies run, badly burned in a fire, and rebuilt by Navy, renamed Sirius, finally wrecked off Norfolk Island on the 14th. of April 1790.

*The Australian Lyre Bird is the world's best imitator; able to mimic the calls of 15 different species of birds in their locality and string the calls into a melody. Also been known to mimic the sound mobile phones.

*The echidna is such a unique animal that it is classified in a special class of mammals known asmonotremes, which it shares only with the platypus. The echidna lays eggs like a duck but suckles its young in a pouch like a kangaroo. For no apparent reason, it may decide to conserve energy by dropping its body temperature to 4 degrees and remain at that temperature from 4 to 120 days. Lab experiments have shown that the echidna is more intelligent that a cat and it has been seen using its spikes, feet and beaks to climb up crevices like a mountaineer edging up a rock chimney.

*Kangaroos need very little water to survive and are capable of going for months without drinking at all. When they do need water, they dig 'wells' for themselves; frequently going as deep as three or four feet. These 'kangaroo pits' are a common source of water for other animals living in the kangaroo's environment.

*A kangaroo being chased by a dog may jump into a dam. If the dog gives chase, the kangaroo may turn towards the dog, then use its paws to push the dogs head underwater in order to drown it.

*Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.

*A monotreme is a animal that lays eggs and suckles its young. The world's only monotremes are the platypus and the echidna.

*The male platypus has a poisonous spine that can kill a dog and inflict immense pain on a human.

*When a specimen of the platypus was first sent to England, it was believed the Australians had played a joke by sewing the bill of a duck onto a rat.

*Box Jelly fish - The box jellyfish is considered the world's most venomous marine creature. The box jellyfish has killed more people in Australia than stonefish, sharks and crocodiles combined.

*The Sydney Funnelweb spider is considered the world's most deadly spider. It is the only spider that has killed people in less than 2 hours. Its fangs are powerful enough to bite through gloves and fingernails. The only animals without immunity to the funnelweb's venom are humans and monkeys.

*Lung fish - Queensland is home to lung fish, a living fossil from the Triassic period 350 million years ago.

Convicts

*It is estimated that by the time transportation ended in 1868, 40 per cent of Australia's English-speaking population were convicts.*A census taken in 1828 found that half the population of NSW were Convicts, and that former Convicts made up nearly half of the free population.

*In 2007, it was estimated that 22 per cent of living Australians had a convict ancestor.

*Convicts were not sent to Australia for serious crimes. Serious crimes, such as murder, rape, or impersonating an Egyptian were given the death sentence in England.

*Crimes punishable by transportation included recommending that politicians get paid, starting a union, stealing fish from a river or pond, embezzlement, receiving or buying stolen goods, setting fire to underwood, petty theft, or being suspected of supporting Irish terrorism.

* Alcohol- It has been reported that the first European settlers in Australia drank more alcohol per head of population than any other community in the history of mankind.

* Police force - Australia's first police force was a band of 12 of the most well behaved Convicts.

* Mass moonings - In 1832, 300 female Convicts at the Cascade Female Factory mooned the Governor of Tasmania during a chapel service. It was said that in a "rare moment of collusion with the Convict women, the ladies in the Governor's party could not control their laughter.

woronora cemetery. sydney

1 comment:

My little brother Brian Robert Williams is buried there in an unmarked grave. He was three years old in 1936 when he was run over by a red truck when I (4 years old) and he were crossing the Princes Highway Kirrawee.I never recovered as I felt I was blamed for not looking after him when we were going across the road to buy some lollies. I am now 81 years old.My grandmother Lucy Williams (Pike) was cremated there and the ashes are in an alcove in the wall near the crematorium. She was nineteen stone when she died.Old grandfather Harry (Henry Inglis Williams) is also buried there. He was a tough old bugger but I loved him anyway. He was a descendant of William Nash who came here as a marine with the First Fleet 1788.I want to be buried in this cemetery because I was a baby in a bush camp just below the cemetery gates in 1933. We got water from the cemetery tap at the corner of Ist Ave Loftus. However I am in Vancouver Canada and will be interred far from home. Cedric hector (Ric) Williams.

beach scene1929

Oh, down at the catching pen an old shearer stands,Grasping his shears in his long bony hands ;Fixed is his gaze on a bare belled ewe,Saying " If I can only get her, won't I make the ringer go."

Click goes his shears; click, click, click.Wide are the blows, and his hand is moving quick,The ringer looks round, for he lost it by a blow,And he curses that old shearer with the bare belled ewe.

At the end of the board, in a cane bottomed chair,The boss remains seated with his eyes everywhere ;He marks well each fleece as it comes to the screen,And he watches where it comes from if not taken off clean.

The "colonial experience" is there of course.With his silver buckled leggings, he's just off his horse ;With the air of a connoiseur he walks up the floor ;And he whistles that sweet melody, "I am a perfect cure."

"So master new chum, you may now begin,Muster number seven paddock, bring the sheep all in ;Leave none behind you, whatever you do,And then we'll say you'r fit to be a Jackeroo."

The tar boy is there, awaiting all demands,With his black tarry stick, in his black tarry hands.He sees an old ewe, with a cut upon the back,He hears what he supposes is--" Tar here, Jack."

"Tar on the back, Jack; Tar, boy, tar."Tar from the middle to both ends of the board.Jack jumps around, for he has no time to sleep,And tars the shearer's backs as well as the sheep.

So now the shearing's over, each man has got his cheque,The hut is as dull as the dullest old wreck ;Where was many a noise and bustle only a few hours before,Now you can hear it plainly if a pin fall on the floor.

The shearers now are scattered many miles and far ;Some in other sheds perhaps, singing out for "tar."Down at the bar, there the old shearer stands,Grasping his glass in his long bony hands.

Saying "Come on, landlord, come on, come !I'm shouting for all hands, what's yours--mine's a rum ;"He chucks down his cheque, which is collared in a crack,And the landlord with a pen writes no mercy on the back !

His eyes they were fixed on a green painted keg,Saying " I will lower your contents, before I move a peg."His eyes are on the keg, and are now lowering fast ;He works hard, he dies hard, and goes to heaven at last.

religions are myths.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/int_rel11.htm

"It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follows from the advance of science." [Darwin]

"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." [Voltaire]

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism." [Einstein]

"Faith means not wanting to know what is true." [Nietzsche]

"I cannot believe in the immortality of the soul.... No, all this talk of an existence for us, as individuals, beyond the grave is wrong. It is born of our tenacity of life – our desire to go on living … our dread of coming to an end." [Edison]

"The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma." [Lincoln]

"Religion is a byproduct of fear. For much of human history, it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?" [Arthur C. Clarke]

"Religions are all alike – founded upon fables and mythologies." [Thomas Jefferson]

"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile." [Kurt Vonnegut]

"Religion is based . . . mainly on fear . . . fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. . . . My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race." [Bertrand Russell]

The First Fleet of ships to carry convicts from England to Botany Bay sailed from ... of the First Fleet and lists the names of those who arrived at Botany Bay in 1788. ...David COLLINS (1754-1810), An Account of the English Colony in New...

1788. THE FIRST FLEET, BOTANY BAY AND THE BRITISH PENAL COLONY ... TheFirst Fleet of 11 ships, each one no larger than a Manly ferry, left ... After a voyage of three months the First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay on 24 January 1788.

With these words the logbook of HMS Sirius recorded the departure of what we know ...They were bound for Botany Bay, there to establish the first European ... The fleetarrived at Teneriffe on 3 June 1787, three weeks after leaving England.

The First Fleet - the process of colonisation, The arrival of the British, Aboriginal ... The fleet, known as the First Fleet, set sail for Botany Bay on 13 May 1787. The First Fleet. The First Fleet consisted of 11 ships and about 1500 people in all.

1775 - Transportation of British convicts to American colonies ceased as a result of the... 1788 - Arrival of First Fleet with convicts at Botany Bay (18/1/1788). ... 1788 –Arrival of convict ships Alexander; Charlotte; Friendship; Lady Penrhyn, ...